Daily Texan Staff
How is it that Stanford University the Harvard of the West Coast has a basketball team talented enough to be one of the odds on favorites to win the national championship?
Here's one possibility...well, actually two: identical twin brothers Jarron and Jason Collins.
While college basketball coaches around the country are wishing they had one big man with enough coordination to move from side to side without tripping over his own feet, Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery has two big men with enough size to dwarf an elephant and enough coordination to out maneuver a cheetah.
Or so it seems to opposing big men around the country.
"Together, Jarron and Jason were the two most dominant big men I have ever seen play high school basketball," said 26-year coaching veteran Greg Hilliard, the Collins twins' high school coach. "As a tandem I don't think there has been a high school team that has been as powerful and as dominant up front."
The "Twin Towers," the most highly touted players that Stanford Basketball has ever recruited, according to Montgomery, now bring to the court each night a combined 13'9" and 515 pounds; not to mention a combined average of 28 points and 15 rebounds.
"It's fun to both be playing well and contributing at the same time," Jason said. "That's what you always want. That's the best way to do it."
It certainly was the best way to do it in high school, as the twins almost single-handedly led Harvard-Westlake, an elite Los Angeles private school known more for its stringent academic standards than its athletics, to back-to-back California State Championships.
However all good things must eventually come to an end. The Collins brothers may play together for the final time on Thursday night, when they return to their native southern California to lead the first-seeded Cardinal into battle against the fifth-seeded Cincinnati Bearcats in the West Regional Semi-Final of the NCAA Tournament.
The West Regional Semi-Finals and Finals take place in the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, a familiar arena to Jarron and Jason since it was the site where they won all three CIF Southern Section Championships for Harvard-Westlake.
Stanford's upcoming games, however, have a little more riding on them than did the high school championship games. Two Stanford wins will put them in college basketball's Mecca, the Final Four. But a Stanford loss will prematurely end a season that had more promise than Tiger Woods did at age 10.
A Stanford loss would also mark the end of Jarron's college career, but it won't mark the end of Jason's college career.
Jason, the elder of the two brothers by eight minutes, was red-shirted his first two years in Palo Alto because of a devastating knee injury in his first year followed by a season-ending wrist injury in his second. So while Jarron endured the growing pains most college freshmen and sophomore basketball players experience, Jason endured the physical pains of rehabilitation. Consequently, as far as eligibility goes, Jarron is a senior and Jason is a sophomore.
After playing on the same team for 22 years, the Collin's twins realize that their career as a unique and unstoppable tandem is coming to a close.
"We know this is probably the last time we'll be on the same team playing together, so that's a weird feeling," Jarron said. "We don't dwell on it. We're just trying to win everything we can in this last year."
And winning they are. Until late season losses to UCLA and Arizona, two schools currently in the Sweet 16, Stanford had never lost with both Collins twins in the starting lineup.
What separates this duo from others is the fact that their games compliment each other so well. Jarron, who plays more of a perimeter game then his brother, is more versatile, and can handle the ball and run the floor. Jason, who is an inch taller and five-pounds heavier than his brother, is prototypical back-to-the-basket center who can also, at times, fill it up from the perimeter. One thing is for sure though; they can both clean up each other's messes.
"When things get tough they just find each other for an easy basket," Hilliard said. "It's just such a great advantage for them to know what the other is doing on the court."
The brothers' mental telepathy makes scoring quite a difficult task for opposing big men. "I get a lot of opportunities for blocks because of what Jarron does," Jason said. "He'll send somebody over to me, and I'll block the shot, or vice versa."
Aside from their positions in the Stanford offense, one can now tell the identical twins apart by their appearance. Jason, No. 34, wears kneepads and has grown a tiny Afro, while Jarron, No. 31, adopts a more clean-cut conservative look.
"Personality wise, Jarron and Jason could not be more different," said Marquis Love, a high school teammate and close friend of both the twins. "But they both are natural leaders with huge hearts."
While the size of their heart is undisputed, the question remains: are the Collins twins backs big enough to carry Stanford to its first national championship since 1942?
The answer to that question continues tonight.
Be the first to comment on this article!